So you’ve been over the reasons why Carmelo Anthony should or should not stay with the Nuggets and you’re mad/sad/frustrated/perplexed. Or not. But in any event you’ve been thinking about it.

And with all of the rumors and proposed deals and jockeying behind the scenes going on, you’re also wondering, if the team is ultimately going to move him anyway why won’t they just do it now?

We know the Nuggets are searching and negotiating the best deal for them, while still trying to satisfy Anthony as well. We also know that there is (was?) a belief in the organization that if they could just get Anthony to the regular season – which, for the Nuggets starts on Oct. 27 – and win a bunch of games, the superstar would see Denver really is the place for him and his family.

But here’s where it also benefits the Nuggets to drag their feet a bit and have Carmelo start the season in powder blue.

Good old fashioned money.

Melo sells tickets. Lots of them. With him, and thus a team that is sure to hit 50 wins and go into the playoffs, the Nuggets are pretty much assured of a packed house most nights. The Nuggets averaged a Pepsi Center-record 17,995 fans last season on the heels of their trip to the Western Conference Finals the year before. The team sold out 22 of 41 games, which was also the most in a season in Nuggets Pepsi Center history. In fact, the last time the team sold out at least 20 games was back in 1994, when the Nuggets played in front of capacity crowds at McNichols Sports Arena in 40 out of 41 home games.

The Pepsi Center was open for four seasons before Anthony hit town. In those four seasons (1999-2003), the Nuggets averaged 15,236 fans per game. The highest one-season average came in its first year. The Nuggets averaged 15,554 fans that season, 1999-2000.

Anthony’s arrival changed all of that.

Since he hit the scene the Nuggets haven’t dropped below 17,000 in average attendance. The season before he arrived the Nuggets averaged 14,825 (they finished 17-65 that year). In Anthony’s first season that average grew by almost 3,000 fans per night, to 17,597.

Monetarily, here’s the fallout. In four Pepsi Center seasons without Anthony, the Nuggets averaged 15,236 fans. In the seven seasons with Anthony, the team has averaged 17,458 fans. That’s a difference of 2,222 people in the seats on a nightly basis.

The average cost of a ticket this season is $66. Apply that number to the average attendance differential and you get $146,652 per night in lost ticket revenue. Stretch that over 41 home dates and it is a whopping $6,012,732 in lost ticket revenue for the season.

That’s a lot of money.

The Nuggets play the majority of their home games by the end of January – 25 of 41. The trade deadline is in February. That’s 25 home games with Anthony in uniform and, presumably the team playing well, which keeps fans in the seats. The team builds equity with the fan base so theoretically they’ll stick around even after Anthony is gone, which maintains the attendance – and thus ticket revenue. And none of this takes into account merchandise and concessions and parking and the crowd that populates the arena’s Blue Sky Grill during and after games, etc.

Of course, there’s nothing that says attendance has to drop by one single fan if Melo is dealt prior to the season. But we all know that Anthony himself is a draw for many fans. While there is a hit the team will take without one of the league’s premier scorers, there is a big business component that suffers as well.

You also have to consider revenues from nationally televised games and other ancillary revenue he brings in. You also have the other side and it’s Allen Iverson, he did the same thing, but was a relative flop in terms of winning.

bentwithbitterness

You also have to consider revenues from nationally televised games and other ancillary revenue he brings in. You also have the other side and it’s Allen Iverson, he did the same thing, but was a relative flop in terms of winning.

Duderomous

Uh… Carmelo is scheduled to make over 15 million this season. By Dempsey’s math, the Nuggets would save approximately 9 million by trading him for nothing in return.

Duderomous

Uh… Carmelo is scheduled to make over 15 million this season. By Dempsey’s math, the Nuggets would save approximately 9 million by trading him for nothing in return.

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.